The receivers are in, and the government is throwing in $1.7bn in order to buy assets they expect to get a return of $700m from. Sounds like a typical New Zealand investment to me There are a few points to come out of this. In some sort of order these are: The government had to …
Monthly Archive: August 2010
Permanent link to this article: http://www.tvhe.co.nz/2010/08/31/thoughts-on-south-canterbury-finance-saga/
Aug
26
2010
A fishy conclusion from a Fisher relation
Interesting. Both a Fed economist and Stephen Williamson (the author of one of my undergrad macro books) have been saying that persistently low interest rates “cause” deflation in the long run (ht Economist’s view) [Lots of others, WCI *, Money blog, Angry Bear, Paul Krugman, Money Illusion]. This seems a little counter-intuitive, but this doesn’t …
Permanent link to this article: http://www.tvhe.co.nz/2010/08/26/a-fishy-conclusion-from-a-fisher-relation/
Aug
26
2010
The difference between compulsions: Tax and forced savings
Just having a look at the speech from Labour on savings. One bit that has caught my eye so far is: The Government collected tax, which is compulsory, and saved it for the future. Now this is true, tax is compulsory. And one way of looking at “compulsory savings” is as an increase in the …
Permanent link to this article: http://www.tvhe.co.nz/2010/08/26/the-difference-between-compulsions-tax-and-forced-savings/
Aug
25
2010
Economists in agreement?
So Don Brash spoke out against compulsory savings, as did Gareth Morgan (note that both would benefit personally from the policy, to a large degree). John Carran’s article sums up how Infometrics feels about the policy. And I am under the impression that every single NZ economics blogger that has touched the issue has said …
Permanent link to this article: http://www.tvhe.co.nz/2010/08/25/economists-in-agreement/
Aug
24
2010
Savings working group
I am a bit tied down at present (which should be obvious by my lack of response to comments). However, I just had to pop around to say that I approve of the team for the savings working group – bunch of great thinkers that will look at the issue objectively, and come up with …
Permanent link to this article: http://www.tvhe.co.nz/2010/08/24/savings-working-group/
Aug
23
2010
Let me get this straight
One of the main reasons the government wants to crack down on alcohol is because of the “scenes no civilized society can relish“, which is when people of the age of 18-24 go into town and run amok – causing definite damage to other people, in some way, or something. So they are introducing a …
Permanent link to this article: http://www.tvhe.co.nz/2010/08/23/let-me-get-this-straight/
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